The band Dunoon filled the Boettcher Room of the Arthur Lakes Library on the Colorado School of Mines campus with Celtic sound.
During the lunch hour on Friday, students, faculty and staff were entertained with jigs, waltzes and old-timey songs.
Old-timey sounds strange, Dunoon’s guitarist George Newland said, but it’s the actual term. Old-timey and bluegrass music have Sottish roots—when the Scottish immigrants made their way into the hills of Virginia, they brought their music with them.
“It’s fun to have music on campus at an engineering school,” said Kathleen Martin, a program assistant in the economics and business department at School of Mines.
Although Rex Rideout will occasionally perform at the library’s concerts, he was an audience member for Dunoon’s set. Rideout appreciated that the band members explained the background and history of the songs they performed. “I very much enjoyed it,” he said.
“People like to learn about different instruments and songs from other cultures,” said Dunoon’s pianist, Susan Stempel.
The library concert series does serve a cultural educational purpose, series coordinator Wendy Shortridge said. But it is mostly to provide a live musical experience for the campus community and give staff and student performers an opportunity to showcase their talents.
“All the performers have a connection to Mines,” Shortridge said. For example, members of Dunoon have hosted international students.
During the academic year, the series will include between 12 to 14 concerts from all sorts of genres — classical, jazz, folk, rock, alternative and Celtic, just to name a few. The next concert will be a performance of traditional Chinese music, and in April, there will be poetry readings to observe National Poetry Month.
For the students, it’s a good way to de-stress during the lunch hour, said Logan Forsythe, who is pursuing a master’s degree in civil/environmental engineering.
Dunoon enjoys playing at Mines, the band’s violinist Mike Stempel said.
“It’s one of our homes away from home,” he said.
Dunoon, a Celtic and European folk music band from Lakewood, performs in the Denver metro area about once a month. To connect with them, send an email to stempel.mike@gmail.com.
